Tuesday, August 31, 2021

How a Physicist Would Make the Recorder Easier to Play

With a bit of math and a 3D printer, researchers created an instrument that's more forgiving of a certain kind of amateur mistake.

 

Image credits: milatas/Shutterstock

How a Physicist Would Make the Recorder Easier to Play

With a bit of math and a 3D printer, researchers created an instrument that's more forgiving of a certain kind of amateur mistake.

Katharine Gammon, Contributor

August 30, 2021

                                                                                                                                                                             

(Inside Science) -- The recorder is a near-perfect instrument for beginning musicians. It's cheap -- often just a few dollars -- and easy to hold and play with small fingers. That's one reason why groups of elementary students playing "Hot Cross Buns" have dominated music education, said Susan Burns, a longtime recorder player who works as the administrative director of the American Recorder Society. "It's the ultimate democratic instrument -- anyone can play it."


But one reason people cringe when thinking about recorder songs is the propensity of new players to blow too hard and hit a note an octave higher than where they aimed.


New physics research now proposes a tweak to the instrument that could reduce the likelihood of the painful overblowing problem. The researchers got there by modeling the way air flows through the recorder...

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